First and 10: Dave Peterson, Worcester Bravehearts general manager
During a Bravehearts home game at Hanover Insurance Park at Fitton Field, Dave Peterson, the team’s general manager, logs about 20,000 steps on his Fitbit while overseeing the entire game-day operation.
Peterson, the face and certainly the heart of Worcester’s Futures Collegiate Baseball League entrant, is everywhere in the park, making sure the field is ready to go, overseeing the staff, attending to things like special parking needs and making sure fans are having fun. Through his enthusiastic efforts marketing and promoting the two-time defending FCBL champs, Peterson is also a well-known figure in the community.
He is also probably better known to local baseball fans as “Peterman,” his “stage name,” if you will, the guy who, in 2005, began as a part-time, on-field master of ceremonies for the Worcester Tornadoes. Wearing loud sport coats, Peterman threw T-shirts into the crowd, danced and entertained. He worked his way up to the Tornadoes’ vice president of sales and marketing.
Peterson, who will still occasionally don the jacket and dance on top of the dugout, grew up in Medway and played for his high school golf team. His first job was at a local driving range. “I drove the cart that everyone aimed for,” he said. He graduated from Syracuse University in 2002 and landed a job as promotions director at Worcester radio station 104.5 WXLO-FM. Peterson met his wife, Amy, while working at WXLO. Amy Peterson is the director of marketing at the DCU Center. The Petersons live in Worcester.
1. Is that your FCBL championship ring you’re wearing?
Yes, this is the (2014) ring. I only wear it once a week. When I meet with important people, I wear my championship ring. I usually wear my Syracuse class ring.
2. What do you think baseball, or having a baseball team, means to the city of Worcester?
This is so important for the city of Worcester and it’s so incredible to see the amount of fans that are coming to support this team. I honestly didn’t know, when I heard about the concept in 2013, if summer collegiate baseball would work in this market, but if you do it right, the crowds will come. It’s all about customer service and what you do in the community. There’s so much emphasis to the on-field product and how the Bravehearts are actually playing, and we’re very fortunate to have won two championships, but my emphasis is on the off-field product. Our coaches do all the work with on-field, recruiting, making the lineups, but off the field, this is a 10-week business — 10 weeks. That’s shorter than a farm; that’s shorter than an ice cream shop, so we need to make enough money in those 10 weeks to make it through the offseason or we need to come up better ways to be in the community during those other 42 weeks when there is no baseball going on, so that is my challenge and that’s what I love. That’s what I love, coming up with the reading programs to get us into the schools, the Little League programs where we provide free uniforms if teams change their names to the Bravehearts, getting out into the restaurants and the bars and just plastering Bravehearts memorabilia in all the sports bars, coming up with a pen pal program, matching up senior citizens with fifth-graders in the offseason and then they meet at the ballpark. What we do in the offseason is come up with these programs that may have nothing to do with baseball at all, but the end product is baseball. That’s how we operate and that’s how we’ve seen the city of Worcester respond to us.
3. Is there a typical day in the life of the Bravehearts’ general manager?
Oh, no, it changes. In the summer, a typical day is very much dependent on the weather, so much of my day is spent looking at the radar and trying to figure out if we need to get a tarp on the field. It’s figuring out, if we have a big crowd, if we have to do extra cleanup. What I’m most proud of here is we have a staff that does everything. We don’t hire a cleaning company; we clean the bathrooms ourselves, we clean the stands ourselves. We do the field work. We’re taking college interns and we’re training them. We bring them in in the beginning of the summer and give them a crash course in sport management. So for me a typical day might be get here at 7:30-8 a.m., make sure the weather report is good. If it’s not, get the tarp on the field. Then I may change my outfit, put on a shirt and tie and go out and meet with some corporate sponsors, head to some community events. If we have a game, I’ll be back here by 3:30-4, so we can get the ballpark ready to go.
4. What’s your favorite part of your job?
I love when I’m driving down the street and I see kids at a bus stop and I see them wearing Bravehearts attire. That’s a real thrill. When you see kids wearing your brand, wearing a Bravehearts hat or sweatshirt, it means they have a real affinity for the team. If I see them walking down the street in Bravehearts attire, I may give them a little toot of the horn. Also, visually, just the thought of me down in left field in a packed picnic area, looking at a sea of people, 3,000 people in the stands, and watching the fireworks over the right field fence and saying, ‘Wow. It all came together.’ That’s really the moment for me when I say, ‘This is definitely worth it.’ ”
5. When you walk into the park each day, do you get overcome with energy?
I keep the staff moving, that’s for sure. If I’m not moving fast, the staff’s not moving fast. So every time I get in here, I make sure we are on our toes helping people. I have to amp up the energy and when I’m here in the ballpark, I just go. That can be running from one end to the other, it could be dancing in front of a group of fans.
6. So you still get to channel your inner Peterman?
The number one question I get is ‘Why don’t you do the on-field stuff anymore? Why don’t you throw T-shirts into the crowd?’ When you’re the general manager, you have to worry about what’s going on behind the scenes — parking, the kid zone, are the tents set up? the ticket booth, is the line moving? I’m a roamer. I move to whatever department needs me on a given night, so I don’t have time to go out and throw T-shirts. Later in the evening, when we have everything under control, I put on a jacket and go out there and dance because I think fans love that. I think that it’s something unique coming to a Bravehearts game because, yeah, I’m a little wacky. I think people understand that.
7. And you still have the Peterman jackets?
I do. I still have the jackets and I might need to get a few more for the collection. We have jacket here, a bright red one, and it now has a Bravehearts logo on it. Uncle Chan Creedon (of the Creedon family that owns the Bravehearts) put the logo on the back of it. We have our souvenir program person wearing that jacket out in front of the ballpark.
8. Where did the Peterman persona come from?
College. In high school, I was a quiet kid. In college, when I arrived at Syracuse, they had misspelled my name on my dorm door. They had ‘Dave Peterman’ instead of ‘Dave Peterson.’ And in college, you know, you keep your door open and people walk by and they wave, they yell. I’d be in there typing a paper or whatever and they’d yell, ‘Hey, Peterman!’ And it was at the height of Seinfeld (which had the character J Peterman), so the Peterman thing stuck and I decided I had to stop taking myself so seriously. I think that my job here on the earth is to entertain people, to engage with them in conversation, to make people happy, to make sure they’re smiling. I said, ‘I’m going to live this Peterman thing.’ When I was hired by the Tornadoes in 2005, the job interview was just me sitting at a conference table with four members of the Tornadoes staff and I was telling them jokes. That was the whole interview and they said, ‘OK, you’re hired. You can be the guy who throws T-shirts into the stands and entertains the crowd.’ After that, it stuck and I wear these dumb jackets and run around and make people laugh and I just think it’s a hoot.
9. Are you ever in a bad mood?
Oh, sure, not at the ballpark though. Sure, from time to time, if things don’t go the way they’re supposed to, but I’d never show that in public. There’s always a learning session after every game. We meet with the staff after every game, we have dinner together and we go over everything that went great and everything that needs to be fixed. In that meeting, I can’t be Peterman wearing a sport coat. I have to be a business person saying, here’s the deal.
10. Can the Bravehearts make it three FCBL titles in a row?
Honestly, I don’t get the chance to watch the games. My best games are when they play on the road and I’m listening on the radio or watching a webcast and I can take it all in. So I talk with the people in the press box, I talk with the coaches and this is a very talented team. The hitting is much better. Last year as a team we only hit .222. This offense is much better and the pitching is already top tier. Last year the pitching carried us to the title and some timely hitting. I think overall I think this could be the most talented Bravehearts team we’ve seen yet.